you know, even if they stuck with the "standard" quality screen but upped the resolution I'd be happy. Just offer an upgrade to a better screen for 100 bucks or so. The batter can't give though, anything under 60Wh is ridiculous.Reply

Just to clarify the GPU choice, I'm totally ok running games at 1280x720 on my laptop. High end all "eye candy" on gaming is what my desktop is for. That doesn't mean it's ok to make the screen low resolution. 1600x900 or higher or I won't even look at it.Reply

Yeah, but you can't do 1600x900 gaming I think is the rationale. Or something. I got this laptop a couple weeks back, before the DX11 400M announcement, which arguably steals some of the thunder as well. I just really hope the inevitable update can give us the bigger battery, better screen, and at least a 435M. That would be a very sweet laptop, and it shouldn't be hard to take the N82Jv and make those tweaks in less than a month. Sell off the low-end screen in other models and make a nice "N82 Pro".Reply

This comment scares me. Am I the only one who doesn't value resolution highly? I've used Windows 7 and still found plenty of software not fully optimised for high DPI, so I'd rather stick to the above resolution. I'd simply want a good display in that resolution.

I am the owner of a Thinkpad T410s with a 1440x900 display. Better, right? At least still 16:10? Wrong! Contrast ratio 95:1, black-level 2.9 cd/m2. I've no doubt the Asus' screen is crap, like Jarred says, but there's worse to be found in the high-end business segment. Basically I think I'd kill for the Asus' screen at twice the contrast and 1/3 the black-level!Reply

Good grief, how do you come up with those numbers? Show some consideration for people with different (yes, probably worse) eyes than yours. My preference is for 1024x768 at 14". My gripe is that the choice has gone away. My next choice would be 1280x800. Even that wasn't available in the low-weight, premium machine I bought. My ultimate choice would be something close to (laser) printed quality, e.g. 300 dpi upwards, and all the scaling problems solved by the OS. In the meantime, while we're at the resolutions you mention, I inevitably end up using some form of anti-aliasing, e.g. ClearType. That doesn't exactly make things better at the sort of awkward neither here (traditional screen < 100) nor there (traditional printer > 300) DPI we have at the moment.Reply

as a owner of both the BEST notebook screen in business, i think i know what i am talking about:screen resolution has absolutely NOTHING to do with screen quality, period. you guys are simply drinking Kool-Aid that notebook company tend to sell you. a higher resolution screen doesn't make it better than lower resolution screen, just as a 17 inch notebook is not better than 12 inch notebook (except it is larger).

the technology used in the panel is what decides screen quality. i have HP dream color 2 on my elitebook and outdoor screen on my x201 tablet. both uses 10 bit IPS screen that delivers superb image with NO color distortion at any angel, both are 300~400 dollar option on the top of the SAME RESOLUTION screen.

a good screen cost A lot of money, much higher than simply put more pixel on the screen. that's why notebook manufacturers try to fool you.

simply put, i will love to a 1200*800 ips than blue LED TN screen of any resolution. Reply

You don't need direct x 11 with a laptop. Any game that you would want direct x 11 you would want a card that is faster than a 9800gt (aka 5750 or GTS 450 desktop parts) or else the card would be too slow to perform an acceptable frame rate with direct x 11 effects added on. Now in theory a game could be "completely" direct x 11 where you wouldn't have a direct x 9 or direct x 10 mode but this won't happen for games are developed for consoles and are developed for pc marketshare and too few people have direct x 11 cards thus their will be a direct x 9 and/or direct x 10 code path.

That said the upcoming 400 series nvidia cards are looking to be faster than this card for they have a higher amount of shaders (the 420m, 430m, and 435m will all have 96 shaders, the difference between each model is the core clock and the shader clock, they have identical memory bandwidth). Whether this will provide an insignificant boost slightly different architecture, and/or memory bandwidth is anybody guess but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a 20% performance boost for they have 25% more shader hardware, and all even the 420m has higher clocks than the 335m. (and the 435m is 30% faster on the core and shader clock compared to the 420m).

Get the 400 series not because of direct x11 but because it will be a faster card, and battery life isn't a big deal due to optimus.Reply

I couldn't possibly agree more with this article. The LCD is an annoyance, but one I can live with, but that battery is laughable compared to the 84Wh one. This laptop is perfect as a second computer, but 47Wh is simply unaccpetable.Reply

That is one point I disagree on, IMO 3-4 hrs is good enough for a lot of mainstream users. Make a larger one available (as part of the purchase) for those who want it, but I find the LCD far more a problem than the battery.Reply

The last two pages of this article just scream "HP Envy 14 with radiance screen!" to me. It's a huge shame Anandtech doesn't appear to have one on hand. I was surprised it was never mentioned. This is a laptop with:

And it seems to be making waves. The Envy 14 upon initial release originally came standard with the radiance screen at $1099, until demand seemed to outpace supply. It became $999 with a standard brightview screen, radiance being as a $200 option. Since then the radiance screen has ballooned to a $300 premium. That's how much perceived value a quality screen is worth to consumers, and it stuns me why more manufacturers haven't tried to go the same route HP has with the Envy 14.

4 months is a life time in the computer world though. Almost every series gets a refresh every quarter.

Now the old envy were 13 inch and 15 inch. They were released during Oct 09 to coincide with the windows 7 launch. While I praise HP vision they didn't really sell well in stores due to the fact they were expensive (starting at 2000+ at the time), had no optical drive (which I see as a benefit but some customers couldn't understand) and the 15 inch cold get very hot. The 13 inch was designed to be fast enough with a culv or lv processor and 4330 video card and up to 14 to 18 hours of battery life (depending on configuration, measured in mobilemark, a bad test I know.) How it obtain this battery life is it had a standard 4 cell battery but it also had a detachable 6 cell battery that was the entire width and length of the laptop so if you attached the battery it is just like the laptop got thicker. The envy 15 inch had the same philosophy with the battery but it instead packed a quad core, a 1080p screen, either a 4830 or 5830 (depending on refresh), and up to 16gbs of memory. On paper, the first envys were trying to be a windows macbook pro that were either trying to be faster (competing against 15 or 17inch) or had better battery life (competing against 13 inch and macbook air).

Now I been more impressed with the 14.5 inch and the 17 inch for while they may be bigger and heavier due to the optical drive, they are trying to be more "balanced" via having more moderate price options available at the start.Reply

Hi,very nice article! thx Jarred!There are some popular notebooks you've not reviewed yet..... like U45jc Asus and HP dm4 (light-weight 14"s)Can you review them or at least join them into LCD comparison benchmark?Thanks.... : )Reply

The proportion of gamers in the comments of reviews websites is almost 100%, but that is not the proportion of users, who might for example prefer a reduction of price in exchange for graphics just sufficient for productivity and video. Or the same price with an increase of storage, of silence instead of gaming, etc.

The divergence between users when it comes to laptop is even stronger, so much so that I would not be surprised if the proportion of users who want gaming on a laptop was insignificant, although still of course quasi 100% of reviews websites comments.

I regret that, on this website as many others, the heat and noise are not even evoked, whereas it seems to me the main element of the build quality for a laptop.

I was interested by the expertise on LCD quality. If I have to pay for a laptop I really want to display photos correctly, and to be able to read comfortably. I would be ready to accept less horsepower in exchange for better display. I would not even refuse an atom netbook with a perfect matte screen.Reply

It's not a case of it "sounding as cool"; there just isn't much to say that's noteworthy. If the laptop is particularly loud and/or hot, we'll make a note of it, but the N82Jv is basically "average" (or perhaps even below average) in these areas. That comes form the components, with the HD 5650 and GT 335M built to hit specific TDPs so they can fit in laptops. If you're not doing anything taxing, the N82Jv runs cool enough that there's no worry. At load, fan speeds ramp up and it gets warmer.

Vivek and Dustin don't have the necessary tools for testing power/temp/noise, so I haven't been focusing on those in order to keep the reviews consistent. But since you asked, the N82Jv runs at around 70-80F temperatures (give or take) idle, and bumps up 5-10F under load. The keyboard and palm rest tends to be a bit cooler than the bottom, though certain areas get hotter than others, naturally. The hottest spot I found under load was on the bottom under where the GPU sits, and it was 105F.

Noise levels are basically at the limit of my SPL meter at idle (30dB), but under load it can get noisier. I measured 39 dB(A) at a distance of about 12". So as a whole, this is good and certainly nothing I would consider problematic. I'm far more concerned with the plastic chassis and low quality LCD on the N82 than I am with the heat/noise.Reply

gaming on a laptop is full of compromises. you never get a powerful enough CPU/GPU without paying penalty of weight/battery life/heat/noise/price. and two years later, you laptop is out of date and you have NO ABILITY to upgrade it.

i am no stranger to notebook gaming. i had that very goal when i entered college (which was many, many years ago). i bought the most powerful notebook with best graphic card available. the system cost over 2k with coupons (which was VERY expensive, i might add). it was high price/heavy weight (5.2 lbs)/heats up like crazy, and poor battery life. it was out of date by the 3rd year in college and barely run any new games with decent settings.Then, i bought another one (T61P) when it came out, again, the best graphic card in business and expensive like hell. it run games great in that year, but now cannot even run SC2 with medium settings.

the inability to upgrade is really what kills it. when you buy notebooks, you are paying more than Ram/HDD/CPU/GPU. you are paying the whole package. buying a gaming laptop means once the CPU/GPU is out of date, you gonna have to throw the whole thing out, no matter how great the monitor you have, no matter how good the keyboard is, no matter how awesome the system was designed. Notebook manufacture knows about it. they cheapens the design in other areas because they know you gonna move to new gears once Intel/AMD/Nv's new chip is out. long term reliably is no longer a concern (HP, i am looking at you). long term engineering test is complete out of the window because all it matters is to ship the units with the newest chip (the ENTIRE NV lineup were overheating, any body?)

i really love the way desktop works. i can dump a lot of money on a good monitor, keyboard, mouse, cage, audio, and knowing those parts are staying with me no matter i upgrade my system to i7 or i70.

the only thing that keep pushing for new notebooks are games. i can hardly find any reason to dump my T61P besides gaming performance. the new i7 cores are also extremely good (i only have i7 620lm, but it runs 1080 video, VHDL simulation, and matlab code without a problem). so this time around i dumped money into a well designed, ultra portable tablet with one of the best screen in business that i know i will use for the next 5 years. meanwhile i can built myself a gaming machine if i wanted for 30% of the cost.

JarredWalton

believe or not, a lot of people buying notebook not for gaming. i know anand has received a lot of computers in the past, why not create a lab to test1: sound quality? fan noise?2: screen quality? (like, take picture from all angels and compare it to others), screen reflection. out door view experience.3: actual portability. when you travel (the reason for thin and light notebook), you want to work on the go. does the position of the fan make it easily blocked when playing on your lap or other soft surfaces? does it make machine overheat? effect on fan noise?4. ease to use, such as how accessible is to the HDD and RAM? how difficult it is to do a full on re-store to factory setting? how about drivers support if your HDD is broken and you do not have a DVD shipped with system? how easy to make back on your person files using the provided tool? and how about notebook specific functions (like, if you have thinkpad, you have thinkvantage software that actually does some nice things such as check your system health, check your drivers and install them automatically).

my whole point is that there is SO MUCH MORE to tell other than your new notebook can run crysis and last 5 hours. in fact, gaming performance is maybe what i care the least because as soon as i see the GPU and CPU, i have a good feeling of what this can and cannot do. the Toshiba one is nicely done to point out the crapware that came pre loaded.Reply